Despite polls showing Mitt Romney and President Obama running neck and neck, Dublin bookmaker Paddy Power is so sure the president will win, it’s already paying off people who bet on him. So far, it’s shelled out $800,000.

“Romney gave it a good shot . . . [but] he’s had his moment in the sun,’’ said a spokesman.

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The print media still pack plenty of power.

When Dawn McCarty, of Antioch, Ill., saw a coyote attack her chihuahua, “I took my newspaper and kind of held it out like a sword,’’ she said.

“I beat the coyote away.’’

Trying doing that with a Web site.

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George Clooney, who starred in “The Descendants,’’ has a very famous ancestor of his own.

He’s a half first cousin, five times removed, of Abraham Lincoln, according to Ancestry.com.

The revelation demotes Clooney’s aunt, the late singer Rosemary Clooney, to his second-most-renowned relative.

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Need proof no good deed goes unpunished?

David Baker, of Stourbridge, England, spent one hour a day for six years picking up trash dropped on the street.

But he was fined $120 for dropping a pizza box and junk mail into a garbage can — because they’re considered “domestic waste.’’

He called it “bureaucracy gone mad.’’

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A 12-year-old Australian girl was given detention for hugging a friend.

An official said a ban was established after bruises resulted from “overenthusiastic’’ hugs.